1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display operating system used for providing a function for selecting any of a plurality of selection buttons displayed on a monitoring screen of a car navigation system mounted in a vehicle and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the variety of functions provided in a car navigation system mounted on a vehicle have been causing difficulties in providing operating buttons for the respective functions on a controller. Therefore, in such a multi-function car navigation system, a plurality of function selection buttons are displayed in a general form of a matrix on a monitoring screen. This provides a constitution in which one of a plurality of function selection buttons is selected for making a determination to realize a corresponding function.
For selecting any of a plurality of the function selection buttons displayed on a monitoring screen as above, several methods are provided. In one of the methods, operation buttons are provided in the form of a matrix on a controller side for selecting a function selection button displayed on a monitoring screen by pressing any of the operation buttons. In another method, a plurality of light beams are projected on a surface of a controller in a lattice. By interrupting the light beams at an intersection thereof and detecting the interrupted light beams, a function selection button is selected which is at a position corresponding to the intersection.
Meanwhile, there is also a method in which a lever-like stick or a sphere is provided on the controller side. By inclining the stick or rolling the sphere, a cursor displayed on a monitoring screen is moved, or displayed forms of the function selection buttons are changed successively in the inclined or rolled direction. When the cursor or changed display form reaches a function selection button selected, inclination of the stick or rolling of the sphere is stopped to make selection of the function selection button.
Incidentally, of the above-described methods of selecting the function selection button, each of the former two can be said as being constituted so as to provide a detection unit on the controller side. This, however, makes it impossible to select from the function selection buttons if the number of rows or the number of columns of the detection unit on the controller side is less than the number of rows or the number of columns displayed on the monitoring screen. Therefore, a limitation is imposed in that the number of rows and the number of columns displayed on the monitoring screen can not be more than the number of rows and the number of columns of the detection unit on the controller side. Hence, when an increase in the number of rows or the number of columns of the function selection buttons is required, the design of the controller must be changed. This causes an increase in the development cost of the system and, along with this, requires user side to familiarize with a newly developed controller.
Compared with this, in the latter of the above-described methods of selecting the function selection button, although it does not cause inconvenience as in the above former two, when there are a number of function selection buttons between the cursor or a function selection button with changed display form and the desired function selection button, a problem occurs in that it takes a long time until the cursor or function selection button with changed display form reaches the desired function selection button.